What the news media often neglect in their coverage of the candidates is attention to their underlying governing philosophies. I think these provide a much more accurate guide to their behavior in office than their tendency to make shifts on small-bore, particular issues.

For all the media hullabaloo around “flip-flopping” in the Bush/Kerry election, we would have had a much keener idea of President Bush’s flavor of governance had the media focused our attention on the core philosophies animating his team of advisers. Bush’s reliance on and deference to those advisers, their belief in the unitary executive, their dogged insistence on loyalty